PRODUCT BREAKFAST CLUB PODCAST #6: Best of Everything 2017 - 2018 Edition - Aj&Smart

Key Takeaways

all right so welcome back to the product Breakfast Club podcast everybody welcome to the podcast you've made it you made it through the I don't know you made it through the intro music intro music which we're now making two hours long to make up for the fact that there's no content in these episodes there no but it was a nice like it was a nice Sonata we had the orchestra playing there for two hours it was good you think that everybody's ready to step I'm pretty sure yeah yeah so he's not just stock music that I found when I search for what are they search for James Bond inspired stock music and just choose one really quickly and by the way if anyone wants to create something for us go go and do it will you will use it yeah if you are listening I would prefer something that was a little more intense I think that the intro music for the first few episodes is so soft that at first when I played them if episodes back I didn't think it was going and then when it started I was like I just it's just too chilled out we got it we have to ramp it I think I want something that is inspired by like as I was telling you on on we were instant messaging back and forth I think it should be inspired by like Judas Priest or early Metallica and I don't want to like an intense drumbeats and you know no you know it sounds very intense I mean I'm a Coldplay fan myself but I got complex so embarrassing that you would aren't you embarrassed to say that I've come to accept that I like kill play and I actually managed to convince quite a lot of people that Cole player pretty good I mean you seriously just need to listen to their very popular I mean they are pretty popular it's not good to it false false what about good what about like the New York Times bestseller isn't that like the definitions not really that popular no you know to be a New Times bestseller you just have to be popular for one week they just have to be popular for one weekend in your New York Times bestseller forever it's a it's it's something that I think is a great a great shortcut to sounding like you know what you're doing damn it I discovered one week and then I mean I'm gonna put it on my headstone New York Times bestseller but it was fully on there for a week you're out there you're almost there so I'm Jonathan Jonathan a product designer and co-founder at AJ and smart and I'm one of your two co-hosts here today from Ireland if you're wondering what the accent is and if it's your first time here hello and and I am Jake and I am your other co-host and I am a designer and writer and I'm also from Ireland that is not true that is not swearing yeah you'll notice because I have a from a puritanical culture over here in the United States we don't swear and we don't have that that really exciting accent that Jonathan has I'm the boring one if you wonder who's talking it's the boring one it's Jake cool actually listening back to the first few episodes I've realized that I'm speaking way more slowly on the podcast I don't know if I'm trying to be careful or if I'm just I don't I don't really know what it is but when I'm listening back to it I'm thinking I don't speak if it sounds like I'm fake talking like when I'm listening back to me I feel like I'm faking it but I don't know maybe I just sound like it was you actually sound fake all the time every time I talk to you on the podcast or in real life that's how you sound I just totally fake all the time it's a little funny god damn it alright I need to solve that for like maybe episode 10 this is episode 6 Jake this is the first episode since the podcast actually got launched it's out there that's right it's out there in the woods in the world now yeah people are able to get it on iTunes they don't have to go onto the dark web to get it to version it claims you can get it you can yeah you know you don't have to pay Bitcoin for it you can buy it you can get it for free it's free and that's it's been pretty cool people I talked to two of my friends who listened to it and that's it I don't know if anybody else besides my new friends listened to it but we have two people friend that's yeah it says two people this yeah there's two people on there yeah yeah so one of them my friend yeah my friend Michael who is a designer at Facebook said that he was he was wanted to shout at me wow he was to it so that was wondering so I think that that to me I interpret that as a five-star review what does he and the other wait you don't you can't just like walk past that one what do I mean by that what it was the gods next this it came via email and that's a lie he said so I don't know we'll have to I'll have to follow up with him and find out okay he meant but I mean I assume he was just so excited it was there was probably the user research thing I mean he was angry I think he no no he's he's definitely he's I yeah he probably just thought we weren't going for and he's pretty he's pretty intense guy and then the other one my friend Kelly she said oh I look I saw that she had a podcast I listened to it because she just sort of like yeah and so that I think also five stars that's also I think if you would translate that two stars five stars so people are just going wild they're going wild you couldn't even you could have faked it for the podcast at least you know you could have put some excitement in there I just like I got an email from this guy from Facebook and he said nothing and then and then I got an email from this girl called Kelly and she said nothing l.j oh yeah we could have said is some crazy chair in there ya know but it's it's good I mean it's but I listened to the podcast episodes because I hadn't heard it before and I liked them a lot so it must be good good I think it's good yeah yeah I think I I thought I would hate it I really specifically thought that we weren't gonna publish episodes two and three because I really did not enjoy recording them if you remember me sitting there really jet-lagged in you were yeah we were in the same place so we were like aggravating each other yeah but they turned out to be really nice I mean we rambled about Apple the thing I was worried about that we were rambling about Apple for about 35 minutes when I was we were trying to get to another point but I think in that ramble about Apple a lot of truth came out and a lot of like you know the thing about Google being your mom and Apple being your dad know all the way around Apple being your dad and Google being your mom and did we say that yeah was the whole thing man it was the whole thing I'm trying remember was but it was more that like Google okay it's more like Google as your dad yeah Google is your dad and what it does it always looks cool because it everyone has very low expectations for dad oh yeah that's the thing that we're just recapping people must hate this part this is the worst part of anything we've done so far recapping episode 2 it's not good but um yeah we have to own it we just have to own it you know you said you've been talking to some folks who do podcast yeah and they said it takes a few episodes you know 16 you got to feel comfortable and I'm thinking one of our things one of our core strengths is rambling so yeah you have to be we can trample too much but we have to be a little comfortable with it it's also kind of what we do and I really and so we're going to get the feedback and I'm actually worried about you receiving this feedback and changing your mind about the podcast because you're going to get the feedback that we ramble too much and you should just ignore it because seriously some of my favorite podcasts are pretty rambley and I know that people there's like two sides of the story there's the very educational podcasts that are really well edited and really carefully constructed I don't know they're bit boring but they're I mean maybe it's not that they're great I mean whether they exist there's a thing of also you know you like real realistically we're not gonna make that pie exactly it's not we don't have time to do it the times is just like we're talking to each other anyway we're calling each other anyway so we're recording it so this is what its gonna look like exactly and you know the other thing okay I did listen to are where we were talking about speaking of just like rambling about something for 35 minutes it was Jason Fried's tweet that was great to really talk a lot about hey Jay and I was thinking hey Jason I was thinking about how this podcast it's a good example of what Jason was talking about that you don't like launching it is kind of helping us learn yeah out words and it's instant you know he's actually right about that as you as applied to this podcast I think it's helpful to get it out there and get real people reacting to it and also get in the habit of making it and part of the thing that we talked about with sprints is getting in the habit of making and moving and so we're trying to do that ourselves now yeah and I think that's like this like we have this sign printed in our office that says getting started is more important than being right and this is something I had to keep reminding myself when we were about to start this podcast because I was thinking okay I have to get Jake the right microphones and I have to get the right software and this and that and that and that and instead what I ended up doing was just like booking you you into the calendar right and we were like we're starting no matter what on Wednesday I have no idea how to do it no idea how to actually get this stuff online and that's why also we ended up doing five episodes before anything came online which was actually how you're supposed to do it apparently according to blogs you should make like loads of episodes first and then dump them all and but yeah it was like it was a scramble to get it done but I think if I try to think about it for two months and really try to think of the concept and whatever and whatever I would just have never happened you know the busy stuff happens and you just don't do it I mean we don't know what this podcast is about yet it's it's called product product Breakfast Club bla bla product Breakfast Club it's about like I mean we talk about product stuff it's it's I mean about the design industry it's about whatever I have some breakfast oh yeah breakfast Gillis yes this is gross if you're on YouTube brace yourself because you're it is no cheat it's yeah it's a it's a banana that I broke in half cuz you can't really and it's got look at there's like a stringy banana string and it's got peanut butter on top if you're not from the United States you might be like peanut butter what it's crushed peanuts you know what's amazing we know what peanut butter is over here it's not that easy to find I even haven't butter I even have a band butter you know when you read yeah what yeah yeah whatever you call what I am no kidding I lived in I lived in Switzerland for a year about I guess it was seven or eight years ago and it was it was not easy to find peanut butter in those days of yore but anyway I'm gonna eat this and it's it's amazing this is amazing it's gross I have tried I eat this a lot I can't figure out how to make it look good it looks gross no matter what you do it looks like pretty gross why don't you eat it on bread or something is it are you doing like a no-carb thing or something are you just didn't vibrate I did this there's a there's an app called no but it's not because they didn't buy Bret use an app called no bread no comedy $14.99 in the extra notes there's an app called rise and rise was a startup that we invested in at Google Ventures we did a sprint with them a few year to go in its nutrition coaching so you're connected with a real person you take photos of your food you send it to this this person and they give you suggestions and this was like a big deal for me actually a lot of eat the kinds of snacks that are recommended in the sprint book and the schedule for when you take breaks to eat actually comes from what I learned from an are who she was my my nutrition coach anyway something that she suggested to me for snacks was banana and peanut butter apple slices and peanut butter and it's a that's been a really good energy booster for me so yeah this is kind of my second breakfast go to and I can't but that's yeah it's not it did the banana doesn't I mean it doesn't really like hold the peanut butter rate can you please stop talking about this like it is shorty who so anybody who's wondering I'm gonna eat it which is worse because I know people won't be listening to these episodes in order of how they came out and you might be listening to this a year later and maybe it's a little bit confusing that were sometimes referring to things that you can see at least now right now on this episode episode six every episode is also on YouTube they're not like directly being released at the same time because it's a lot of a lot of videos have to get out there but you can mostly most of the time when you're listening to this you can also go to youtube and find it typing product Breakfast Club and you can see Jake disgustingly horribly eating a banana and I'm about to I'm about to puke alright cool so speaking of puke let me just do a quick correction about episode 2 I think it was episode 2 or 3 and this is something I've heard other podcast people doing as well where they kind of go back and realize something they did wrong or you know made a mistake and I made a hilarious mistake I still believe it wasn't a mistake but because I can't find any proof for it and because someone contacted me and told me I was wrong and that was like you're totally wrong of course I was right about this whatever and there's no proof that I was right so I need to tell you do you remember I was telling you about Samsung having this like dogwood shoes that was basically Samsung's version of Siri it's cold out you said that yeah yeah so Samsung does have a an assistant called big be you press a special big speed button and it's it's not very good at the moment it's there's nowhere I can find anywhere on the internet that shows that this thing has is a dog with shoes I don't know where the hell that came from and I don't know why I even started talking about it but I can't find it I just can't find that anywhere it's not a dog would shoes it's just nothing it's just called Bixby I I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure I'm right but I cannot find any evidence of it anywhere maybe I was drunk well you know that makes me feel good that at least as far as I can remember I told you I didn't know you were talking about I did it and and and you talked about it confidently enough that I actually formed in my mind a picture of the dog with the shoes I could I had imagined it vividly but I did not I stopped short of a thing which I sometimes do which is somebody starts talking about something because this is something I feel like I really started doing this a lot working in Silicon Valley where everybody's talking about like some new thing and if you stop everybody every time you say a new thing that you've never heard of yeah like it's for one thing it's a little embarrassing like I want to act like it's a guy who knows stuff but also you might never get anything done sometimes so you have to like sometimes people are talking about what they're you know I mean a sprint and somebody's talking about how the thing works and I have to just be like oh yeah yeah the it connects to the the gr interface yeah sure okay yeah it's a good one so I'm glad that I did not say oh yeah yeah Bigsby the dog with shoes yeah I know anything about IC yeah isn't it his shoes are so bulbous you know or something that was like Shirley's eyes are open at state honest yeah yeah right yeah yeah really detailed like going into so much detail about the description of the dog the shoe type everything and it's like doesn't exist Jake actually I'm talking about yeah but the cool thing is that if you do google dog with shoes you can find milk I do yes Daisy you can find so many funny videos of like it's always like a dog and they've obviously someone's put I don't think the dog themselves have shoes on but somebody's put shoes on the dog and it's just walking around the place and it's it's ideal for the hungover post Smith's party mindset that I have right now just a dog wearing shoes walking around that's all I need that's really all I need for today hey you know there's nothing else there's nothing else that's the content I have so I do actually I do I do have an episode so I do have actually I think that this should be just in terms of our schedules as especially mine right now I would actually like this to be the final episode before Christmas Wow if that's okay with you know it's kind of sad that made me a little sad I'm not gonna talk it's sad it's sad and we could no I'd ask for from Santa was another podcast one more podcast please yeah but we can make this one goes drip baggie okay that that's good we can make up for it it this can be like seven episodes worth of podcast and one so far for all the rambling that we did at this start we're gonna make up for it in just like pure hardcore unadulterated content like pure the hashtag content is gonna is just is gonna come right at you right now yeah there's just too much it's too much editing to do over the next two weeks so it's just all so we're trying to get all these nice clips of all the other episodes out and grow with a podcast and bland bland but you just think these podcasts just pop out on the iTunes Store right you think they grow on the iTunes tree I don't they don't they don't grow a tree there I'd buy elves these podcasts right my elves and those that elves are hardworking and expensive they would be my employees would be pretty offended by this part of the punch oh I didn't call I didn't know I didn't mean to call I didn't mean to call yourselves although everyone is everyone almost everyone is shorter than me except any one an elf but even Danny's elfish in his own way he's very I mean damn they're going to be listening to this so what I say right now is based effect based on the fact that they're gonna listen to it daddy is a full-on elf yes I mean I think yeah I think he's he's I'm trying to think of a an Elvish thing I've been reading The Lord of the Rings I lied to my younger son so I should have all these elvish like words on the tip of my tongue but I'm not one of those people who test stuff yeah oh all right look let's actually do some podcasts let's actually do some books to it here before we start reading out your Lord of the Rings - to me and I'll just I'll just go with it that's the thing I mean episode 7 its episode so we're on episode 6 and this episode is gonna be we're gonna reflect on the year Jake okay wait on the year only six episodes it to the podcast are already reflecting on the year even though we started this podcast and look back to four weeks ago when we started episode 1 and no let's let's let's see how this goes I have a feeling this could turn out to be a really nice episode and really helpful for people and but of course it might also end up being total waste of time you know what if it if we feel at a certain point that it's not really exciting or good enough for the podcast then we could start talking about the UI design thing we're talking about just before this started oh yes little Jerry I'm good yeah I'm a very high five second topic yeah exactly at the very end everybody there's gonna be a really good you know update from industry insiders about where UI design is going but you're gonna have to wade through a lot of first alright cool so my general and what is thinking about how to structure this would be looking at the year looking at maybe even the the things you were thinking about doing in 2017 from the perspective of 2016 so you know in December 2016 you were like these are the things I would like to do next year these are the things I'd like to change in my life and whatever and looking at what you actually found really useful really positive and changes that you made the activities that you did and I don't know products that you bought everything like everything imaginable in terms of what you think had a positive impact in on your life this year and that you would actually like to carry on to next year as well and then we can go for the bad stuff as well like things that you just were like no I just I need to change that that's just like sucks I want to I want to change that sort of thing okay the way this works is Jonathan tells me the topic of a podcast these are right before we start ordering the pun exactly you might have you might be generally more articulate in the podcast because I'm not smart it's because I'm just thinking on the side I'm gonna you know I'll kick you off just with my little ramblings of things I found really really helpful this year so yeah sure do one at a time shooting should we trade off one at a time you know you do a good one do you wanna actually I can start with one you have you set me up pretty well to start about things I was thinking of one year ago today and if I was thinking about quitting my job and I was thinking about writing a book that I wanted to get done this year and that was those things were exciting and really stressful to me at the time of year ago and and I think that one of the reflections it's really positive is if I look back to a year ago I'm like well I did I quit my job all the things I was worried about happening didn't happen and you know we could talk about that more if you want and then and then in many ways it's just been much better than I then I thought it would be it's been it's been more fun to be spending more time writing more fun to be trying to create other ways of doing the kinds of design work and product work in teaching and a lot of that is you and me working together there's been even more fun than I imagined yeah and and yeah and and in the book is the manuscript is is done and is in copy editing just as of like last week this week so all of that stuff is really exciting and sometimes it's nice to it actually you know I wouldn't have I would not have realized that that was a year ago if you hadn't sort of posed this question it made me look back and say oh yeah like a lot sometimes it feels like from day-to-day and week-to-week not that much changes but looking back a year ago things have changed a lot and it's and it's exciting cool so that's one thing so now either you say a thing this is how a podcast works you either I just say cool I just say are you asking me follow up for me that's how that's how it works okay so what actually made you decide well actually maybe even a bit further back when did you decide to quit GV well was the was like the the moment and what was the trigger for it I've been having a midlife crisis since I was like 22 years old basically so hey which is a long time ago and I have so I was probably every you know a couple years that I worked at Google or even every couple years I worked at Microsoft I I have this you maybe even like every six months moment where I'm like and what am I doing with my life my god sometimes passing I need to make sure that I'm not just on autopilot here that I'm not just like there's this there's this really sad Pink Floyd line from when they're songs which says and you know ten years have passed you by no one told you when to run you missed the starting gun and I remember hearing that when I was in my early 20s and being like oh my god that could easily happen at work when you're working for someone and you're working on something that you like you're working with people that you like it's easy for time to start passing by pretty quick once you get the hang of what you're doing yeah and once you get you get really locked into the culture of the workplace and what rewards there are you keep working you move up you know sort of like it promoted you climb the ladders of things and so I've always been I always have like that certainly happens to me but that I get I get into a groove in this I think this happens to all of us we get into a groove and we're happy about it but I I also and like have this this alarm it's recurring don't harm that goes on like oh my god Jake what wake up wake up like what are you what are you doing are you are you really pushing yourself not being true to yourself and or are you just reacting are you just kind of falling into it into a pattern and this is not to say that I felt like working at Google was you know was like a grinder that it was like automatic pilot it was really a fun time and that alarm was going off it goes off all the time for me anyway and so most of the times for the first ten years I was at Google when it went off I was like no this is good or I was like I'm gonna change what I'm doing here so one of the times that alarm went off was when I wanted to create design sprints I was like then alarm went off and I was like yeah I need to change what's going on but I can do it here I'm gonna try to do it here and then when went off again I was like yeah I want to go to Google Ventures to do it but you know that opportunity was there and this time you know I think maybe a couple years ago when it went off I started to think I wonder what when is it going to be time to do something new and because I had been really into writing I started writing before writing spread I've been writing this section book for seven years to him I'm getting there to being finished with it although that's not the manuscript I I was I was like that thing started to really push on when the alarm went off I was like I'm wondering what would happen if I spent more time writing and I need to take that seriously or I'm always gonna wonder about it and I don't want to look back and say ten years went by I didn't think about it now I've missed the opportunity or I don't know what's what could have happened if I focus more on writing so yeah about a little more than a year ago last I thought the time is coming and I need to figure out when the right time is and then I think I spent too long waiting for the right time to come waiting for it to be you know the perfect time mm-hmm there's the things I was scared of as I said we're not as scary as I imagined they would be so yeah yeah cool I mean I don't have any follow-up questions I think I think I ended it really well last time when I just said cool and went silent yeah and continued to talk yeah you asked for a follow up questions so it was really great and this is how podcasts work we're really good at this I actually really hate listening to Tim Ferriss his podcast after we do one of ours by the way because he's like the master it questions he has the books of questions he knows exactly what to ask and how to dig deep and how to warm people up and I'm just like cool go completely silent I love it but it's a different type of podcast Jake right we're never gonna make the podcast where we're maybe when people start hating you it's never gonna be the Tim Ferriss of show we're not gonna we're not gonna have uh you know that kind of thing where I can be interviewing people every time I'm just gonna be interviewing each other and really we're basically like - Tim Ferriss is interviewing each other right that's right I mean that's what that's the thing if Tim Ferriss had another Tim Ferriss that he could interview he would do he would do this exactly access to us exactly you've done them access to you have to go out and find celebrities and other interesting people that's sad it's so so my god as our president here would say sad that is that is sad Tim if you're listening to this I just want to tell you man your podcast is sad I mean it's it's clearly unsuccessful it's only like number one I think in the overall iTunes business charts sort yourself out man okay so I'll go for one and this time last year almost exactly this time last year well no not exactly but the 6th of December the 6th Irish accent I sat down and I wrote a little Google Doc about what I wanted to happen in 2017 so this is an ideal thing to look back on right and I yeah are you reading it right now are you man no I'm not right now but I have it I have it next to me here and that the interesting thing is I brought it up we have like our monthly town halls at AJ and smart and instead of creating the presentation for it I just brought that up that Google Doc and I kind of wrote underneath it what actually happened and what did actually wait was there anything was there anything personal and really creepy in there that you had to share with your team yeah most of it was very very personal and it's like erotic so our American listeners maybe you can just just skim past those just give us that you know I like some of those now so maybe I should make that more clear this was my business business I wanted to do this yeah that's good that's good to know exactly so it was called my it's called ajs 2017 Jonathan's plans various guys that's good but that's a good gue GLE doc title i think strong start strong start to the side Siri just think thought that I was trying to ask her something here Siri countdown okay so the first thing and the first thing that I wanted to do and I guess the the thing that I would recommend anybody trying to build their own business like just get on this immediately is something I'd been procrastinating about for probably six years and that was to just hire dedicated people to create content for us and run our social media channels and so I in my basically I'd been listening to this guy called Gary Vaynerchuk you've maybe heard of him and maybe don't like him and a lot of people don't but they're wrong and he's a guy who's just very very aggressive about people documenting what they're doing and really being a strong presence on social media and and not just leaving it like to the side and you know having these marketing things as like a side activity so I decided to take this like that we call it awareness at AJ and smartest I decided to take that on as my main project for 2017 and well actually this podcast that we're doing right now is because of this push for creating content kind of creating awareness wrapped up in your marketing plans like an honest no no I mean the podcast actually wasn't in there and it was mostly about we started with Instagram was mostly Instagram and I didn't want to start and I've been procrastinating about starting for years and the reason I was but even though I always telling clients getting started is more important than being right I was holding off and I was just making excuses the entire time and I was I was annoyed as well that we weren't doing it and I was just like you know I was the one posting one or two things on Facebook and this and that I was annoyed that we weren't getting newsletter more newsletter followers whatever and then this guy Gary Vaynerchuk said something that just like immediately changed my mind and it was document over create so instead of trying to think about like different types of content to create all the time just document what you're doing just document the growth of your company just show how it looks inside the company so we started daily vlogging our Instagram one year later I mean today it's it's one of the things that has had the biggest impact on the entire company our Instagram and YouTube channels like our last bootcamp last week the design sprint boot camp it's a two day paid event it was 60 percent of the people there were from either Instagram or YouTube which was crazy 60 60 percent 6-0 percent and this is a this is a high ticket price event it would be around $3,000 per ticket and there was very little marketing done around it it's just that we've now built a community of people who are giving you know they're of course they're they're giving us their attention in return for us producing you know content that they actually want to consume but it's it's been a huge driver for us but we would have never done it if we didn't just say we're gonna really push in that direction not make it a side project and just completely go crazy on it so that was one of the things where this time last year I just said like we're gonna we're just gonna gun this thing we're gonna go crazy on it for a full year as an experiment and see what happens and not back out even if we feel like it's not working rather just keep pivoting and playing around with it but just really just do it for a year and see what happens and huge really huge I'm really amazed that I mean and it comes back to this quote I don't know if I mentioned this called last week but I think I saw it on Tim Ferriss Instagram how original it's the one year from now you wish you started today and this is like my new saying that I'm gonna use for everything so everything that I doubt Tim Ferriss be simply taking a picture of that cake exactly a picture like that yeah there should be a poster of like a cat like hanging onto a brick definitely a cat that said it it's like they I think it's a cat that actually created that quote but it's such a good I mean it sounds cheesy and corny but it's actually the book the best thing of all time that's what every no it's true yeah it's true it's right it's like it is super it's super corny but also super true Oh both you and I are talking about things that I think we wish we started maybe even a little sooner because once we started actually it was like it was great it was great to start yeah and I think one there's a million reasons to not start I mean you know just inertia like the inertia of anything whether it's as an individual or a company it's it is easier to not start and to do do smaller kind of tasks that feel like you're making progress checking gas off and I think big things that are that are knowing at you you got to get into you yeah definitely and I think one thing that came out of that as well and one thing related to that exact quote that I'd been putting off going to Silicon Valley for quite a while because I felt like AJ and smart wasn't ready right we're company based in Berlin why the hell would we even bother trying to work with companies over there and do you weren't it I mean it was embarrassing when you can disasters lights off it's still really bad every time I go over there people are just laughing non-stop but it was crazy like I mean I flew over it the first time I was in Silicon Valley was this year and and I guess early March when I met you the first time and all of that was related to the fact that I was like I'm just gonna do it I'm just gonna see what happens I'm just gonna try to get some just try to get some ajj and smart some work over there and as soon as you just break through that as soon as you just get that thing done is a book the flights get on the plane set up a few meetings it's done the momentum starts and now and we've been back like four times since then and have you know a large chunk of our revenue is now coming from these California clients and it's crazy it's crazy these things that you just keep putting off because of maybe imposter syndrome or because it's easier to just not do things and it's easier to do small things and that's that's what I always tell people when they're like hey you know with the podcast or whatever hey yeah do you wanna you know you know program a really cool website and do like a little brandy and everything for it and deep down I'm like yes I want to do all of that because that makes me not have to do the real work but instead I'm I'm trying to get in the habit and really pushed that into 2018 where I really try to do the big things really try to just go for the big things that I know I should do and not procrastinate on them and that even goes for like personal health as well I I everyone waits around for the right time to work out right you know it's like oh next year when I'm you know have a bit more time I hate when I have a bit more time is like the classic dumb thing to say so I'm also gonna want to take that out of my out of my vocabulary vocabulary as well and I just are going to assume you should just assume you're never gonna have time you just have to learn how to put things into your current schedule and just assume that it's going to be chaotic and not make these news that you're like I can't believe I used to say that that I used to say Oh yeah I'll do these thing I'll get I'll write my book or I'll write my articles when I okay to sit though I mean not bad I think we all know it like I'm elder than you I said it to myself yesterday nice and you know I'm really busy right now I'll get back to that thing when I have more time like it to it it's a it's a human condition but you're always fighting against that these things and it's but yeah when you I think one thing that this is not an original thought but it's a still a profound one which is some of the things that are the most the hardest of the most exciting there's not as much competition for the really hard things yes actually if you KITT if you have the guts and the persistence to show up and do the hard things that there there are fewer people in that pool than there are people competing for the the things that are that I'm a little bit more mainstream a little bit more obviously accessible and obvious like safer paths are often you know more crowded and and it can be really surprising sometimes when you break out of the normal path how Mike maybe it's maybe it's it's doable so you certainly found that with your with kind of expanding the business to Silicon Valley with establishing a brand for a design agency which you know you you could have just said we're just gonna keep plugging away and just doing this work and let the brand's the work speak for itself and people do that and that works but but kind of becoming a social media brands that's into I mean it's interesting how some of these things when you when you got into them you know and when like there's there's not that many people competing it's not always as as difficult as it seems like it'll be difficult but but you're applying work where other people aren't I think it's such a good point like the that's something is well this like least crowded channel you know the who look for it like there are not a lot of design agencies doing daily vlogs on Instagram for example and there's not a lot of design agencies with you know three YouTube videos a week and all of this crazy content the entire time and the thing that makes me always realize I'm on the right path is when people they come to us and they they come to our office they're like why are you doing this like why are you at surely why are you wasting your time doing all of this stuff when you could be you know making you know building up your portfolio doing your website our websites a disaster I'm so sorry about that but like that and it's actually a conscious decision every design agency has a really great website and I'm sure we should bring our standard up to a point where people aren't just like horrified and think that it's a big company but at the same time we've decided on purpose to go for the least crowded channels like YouTube like Instagram and like me physically flying and to meet someone like you right and that's something that's like a maybe like it would have been super easy for me to not put the effort in to meet up with you the first time right because it's like I have no idea how that might actually go you know what I mean in my mind I could have been a disaster you might have just been like you're such an idiot why are you even why are you at GV like who are you freaks yeah I mean I think that we I think yeah there's there's a couple things I want to touch on with what you just said that I think are interesting one is that just for me personally this idea of doing something that there wasn't crowded it wasn't crowded has really been was and for me as a designer like is a product person working at Google or Google Ventures or whatever or building a name for myself was just instrumental because no one else like who else is really into design process like that is not that is not what people are into and they're the competition to be the best designer to run the base team to like to work on the most influential projects that that competition is fierce there's tons of great designers and they're much better than me at design and a lot of people so much better than me at design but there are not that many people who were like me like super crazily passionate about like the these sort of dorky details about how you do the work and how the the product team works and by like the more I embraced my weird onus and like went into that like it was like there was there was nobody else's air and and that that's that was kind of I think that part of it that was true just you know building off of that my second point is that the stuff that you did at work there is a lot of hard work and there are a lot of great stories behind making that work I don't think somebody can start from Ground Zero I mean maybe in some situations like it can be a little misleading looking at some times like someone like Gary Vaynerchuk who built everything he did through social media and like something and he has whether you love him or hate him and you know like I won't say but like I love his like he's yeah like he's he's a very strong personality he's not and not everybody can can come across like that and I've said this in previous episodes that you like you have a really like strong Gary's charismatic personality not everybody can come across that way but behind it all there was this really good work like when I met you you you had written this post about or maybe I don't know if it was you or 10 but wrote this post about the United Nations project that you guys did with a design sprint and it was like it was a great story it was well-written it was a you know it was an interesting client everything was great about it and you had this like kind of collection of really good work to build on so the stories are meaningful like you have expertise and stories are meaningful and you can't only fake it you can't only like go into an on crowded Channel you can't only social media your way into success in the given field there has to be real stuff behind it you just I just think it's interesting to think about the mix so that it's it's you don't go all-in on real stuff and expect that things will magically succeed and that you'll be recognized based on merit because the world doesn't really work like that but you also can't think that you're totally getting game the system and it's gonna work because I think a lot of people are just trying to game the system yeah without putting in the hard work and that doesn't work either it's like it's a you just have to combine the two yeah it's interesting because on the one hand I mean there are I would disagree with some of it because if I thought if I thought I had to go back six years to having no connections not having started a Jane smart and just being like right out of college actually wait a second right out of college was like nine years ago whatever but if I had to start from scratch I think I probably would use this document over create tactic where I would be straight on to youtube vlogging probably every day just about my butt would you've been talking about exactly so this is the document over creating at that point I would have been talking about being a designer who doesn't know what's going on and doesn't know how to get a job and is very confused about what's going on at the moment we I would have almost no followers but you would see over the you know the the yeah span of you would have gotten in you would have gotten in a lot of reps and you would get better at it exist it's just like I think it's I think it's one of its back to the like this thing about being people being provocative and you got sure to not take them to Lake face value if you don't create something and you're just documenting everything like there are people are succeed at that but I don't think it's meaningful to be purely a you know documenting everything about your life you can't have we can't be a world full of people documenting everything all the time that's kind of what we're slipping into these days and just do that so that's not to say that you shouldn't like them the sooner you start documenting and I like you I wish I had started writing sooner yeah I wish I could gotten into that sooner and gotten the hang of it sooner because it takes tons of reps I was just listening to an interview with Tim Urban and he was who says he writes wait but why and grant he's talking about how he wrote for six years before starting wait but why he had this blog and had written like like 300 posts and his voice is so natural and you know if you ever like meet him or talk to him I his voice is like just like that he talks just like he writes which is what I think every writer or many writers certainly I I liked aspire to write the way I talk and to talk the way I write and then it's it's hard and you have to get a lot of reps you you know you can I just think that likes there's a little bit of danger and I'm gonna I'm just gonna Instagram about everything I'm doing all the time and like at some point you gotta like shut up you gotta like close the door right let's put your headphones on and you got to do work and you got to actually get good at what you're doing or it's just it's just noise yeah I mean I will preface it by the fact that we didn't really start on social media for six years so we did do the work however I think I'm pretty sure I'm almost 100% sure if I had more of the document over create mindset my personal brand would be a lot stronger today I just I'm that's just a fact you know I would it be a maybe I mean there's also yeah yeah yeah not necessarily the business the other thing is like I think that this document over create thing should be combined with something like and I think we talked about this maybe three episodes ago but people aren't gonna listen to every episode anyway but the canvass strategy yes they are they have totally you know this canvas strategy this Ryan holiday article about if you don't have if you're if you're not at the position that you want to be at and you're like low on the food chain which is what you are when you come out of college or when you want to jump industries you are low on the food chain one of the best ways to work your way up the food chain and to learn fast is to use something called a canvas strategy which is basically you're doing things to make other people look good and that's your strategy 24/7 so every decision you make is about the people who you're looking to end aspiring to be or to have like a similar position or to learn from you don't you're not asking them you know you know the thing hey can we meet up for a coffee and let me pick your brain and you're always looking for an angle to either connect these people to two people that they would want to be connected to or to just do something that makes them look really great and or helps their brand and if you think about it the UN article which I wrote not Tim god yeah I look good exactly right good and I was it was part it was it was it was so well-written that's why I thought Tim wrote it well that was back going at what for it specifically for that article because I sent it to GV I wanted it to be well-written however I did write that in one and a half hours so it still is my style just just but the whole point like for example and this is gonna sound weird to talk about on the podcast but and I in at that point and and still right now because you're you know New York Times whatever blah blah I was so much lower on the food chain just in terms of also my location and my access to these companies and just like there wasn't much that I was able to say like you know if I just sent you an email and said hey let's meet up for a coffee you shouldn't have said yes to it and you and you if you hadn't seen any of my stuff it probably we probably would have yeah okay well yours but it was different it was more I mean it was like excited in a different way yeah you're a bad example because you're nice but most people who are like you know higher on the food chain if we're talking about career would just ignore those emails or say uh you know maybe maybe putting it off but I I knew it already I knew it in advance I knew about the canvass strategy as a thing like that you don't want to be contacting people asking them to pick their brains I think Jason free talks about that a lot Jason freed and so I rather I went for the angle of let me just show Jake that even you know meeting someone like me could be good for his brand and that was the thing with the workshops and all that kind of things so I think when people start out and I'm upon again I just exactly the way I feel how I've been manipulated technically it's good to be manipulated by me because if you get manipulated by me I make you look good in the end so it's like it all works out now yeah it's like at the end of the usual suspects I don't know maybe you have never sought to yield that movie well it's just like it that's just just like that whole thing is the whole thing's a sham yes learned the whole thing's a sham like well I you know I do think though I mean and I I think that everything you're saying makes sense and is good advice Bob but I also think that well Noah also I and it is good advice and I and I also want to add the the advice or the the frame of mind that there are many people who are at whatever point in th